Because, poetry is clarity!

Poetry

I used to have a ritual.
Of gathering thoughts
and polishing hopes.
I would pick a thought up
and then, a hope.
One by one,
I would ascertain
their worth.
If they passed muster,
I would take them along.

Long before I grew up,
I knew –
I had to invest –
in silence.
To bring forth
from the corners of memory –
all that has been;
and from a vague image
of a distant self –
all that should be.

I had an inkling –
that it was in stillness,
that time bridged
the distance
between the past
and the future;
That it was in silence
that the true reverberations
of the self were felt.

But somewhere between childhood and here,
the ritual receded
into a shelf
of long discarded things.
But once in a while when I stand still,
I can hear
the thud of innocence
against walls of reason.

Once in a while when I stand still,
I can yet freeze time
and rewrite my days
as if I were –
the master of my time.

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And here I stand.
Between twilight and the break of dawn.
I hold in my mind
all my forgotten thoughts.
Sifting through the sand,
I realize – it was by this shore
that I had buried
all my hopes for tomorrow.

Each passing tide
had held forth
the promise of this very land.
Not a grain less,
not a grain more.
All this here –
my mistakes, my doing – my life.

And now, here I stand.
Tomorrow, I will break into a tide;
I will rush with the winds;
sleep under the shadows
of a distant sun.
For I am in a ceaseless transition
from who I am
to who I will be.

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Could it be-
That the sinking sun is lonely?
Could it be-
That the ecstatic sky it paints-
The glorious red and the gold
Is all but an entreaty
Of a jealous lover?
Or could it be-
That over the seas
And over the mountains;
And over the gurgling Ganges
this symphony of light
Plays out everyday
to remind us
that all glory could be had
If we just hold on?
Could it be-
That all Life could be set aflame
If the passion burns bright?

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Death trudged along;
A lonely hitchhiker
In a very alive world.
A few lives here
And a few there;
It moved on-
Hardly keeping a count.
Somewhere, in this
dispassionate murder of life-
Loved ones were lost.

Simple things are
Sometimes,
The most difficult
To say.
Let us try.
There was life.
And then there was none.

No. It doesn’t make the cut.
Let us try again-
Maybe, they are in a better place.
Maybe, there is a heaven
Where good souls socialize.
– that is a pleasurable thought.
All the peddlars of credulity
Would have you believe
In grey heavens
and afterlives-divine.
Belief is easy.
Should we try belief?

Delusion!
What is a soul?

I am because-
I think.
I think because-
I can.
And that is all there is.
To think and to believe
Are very different things.

Shall we try again, then?
It is necessary
To document
Good lives.
History
Is otherwise
A drudgery of wars
And deaths.

There was a man.
And now he is dead.
There is a void
Where kindness once was.
Death was not vengeful.
It was life
That was-
Conflicted.
And yet simple;
ephemeral.
He did well. He was true to himself.
We will leave it at that.

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The wind came in today –
uninvited, cheerful.
It’s an old soul,
you could tell.
It knows it’s stories well.

It has heard people breath.
It has heard people laugh
and sigh.
It has carried kisses
and left them burning
on an anguished lover’s cheek.

All this and more,
And yet it plays
with curtains
in my little hall.

It says there is a whisper
in faraway woods.
And the whisper
has enquired
if it knew a girl
by my name.

The wind knew me well.
Trapped in my hair once,
it had heard my fears.
It knew me as how
the night would know a dream.
It asked of the whisper,
this story held in the woods
in which was my name.

The whisper spoke
of love and fear –
and how they shape
men and women;
the degree – it differs.
Some lean on love, some on fear.
Most – on a mix of both.
There is a story in the offing,
the whisper said to the wind.

The wind played purposefully
in my hall.
The curtain grazed my cheek.
A little less fear,
a little more love;
I heard.
The stories are in the woods.

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There are nights
when moonlight
comes home
into the cup of my hands
and time holds still, shy
to move on.
Within its bosom,
the night holds
a wisp of the serene
and I glimpse it
reflected in another soul.

Know this –
as the world around
diminishes
and you recognize
the faint markings
of this another;
Know this –
Moments are ephemeral;
however heavy, they linger.
The cup of your hand
cannot hold
all of the light
there is to see.

What then, you ask –
What of life?
Why gather vulnerabilities?

Because it is love
we are here to discover;
Empathy – for another.
We are frail within ourselves,
vain and forlorn.
All that you are –
there is – another;
Know this, too.